Sunday, November 28, 2010

Thanksgiving is over. Xmas is coming. The stores are playing Xmas music and are full of stuff, more stuff, stuff you never knew existed, stuff you don't need, stuff your friends don't need, stuff you will buy anyway... of course.

The weather is getting colder. There are hardly any boats left on the moorings. They are all tucked up in their shrink-wrap coats for the winter, packed gunwhale to gunwhale on dry land. The hardy souls are frostbiting. Brrrrr!

Is it just me or is anyone else already coming down with a bad case of cabin fever? Do you feel the need to say, "Bah humbug! Forget Xmas shopping. I need to fly to St. Somewhere. I need warm water and a tiller in my hand. And afterwards I need palm trees and sand between my toes and rum drinks with little umbrellas"?

If you could escape to anywhere in the world this December, where would you go, what would you be doing?

Can't escape anywhere now. Here in the Pacific Northwest our racing season starts in earnest next weekend with our South Sound Series with the West sound Series starting in February. And then Center Sound series starts in march and Tri Island Series starts in April. From December through June we will be racing two to three times(or more) a month. And then July to November I will probably race once a month in selected regattas.

The big boat scene in Puget Sound is alive and well. We never take our boats out of the water for winter storage.

Tillerman, you can always come down to Tampa and sail with us. We just had the Davis Island YC Thanksgiving Day Regatta..over 125 boats raced, from windmills, flying scot, opti (all fleets red white blue & green) contendeers, sunfish, 9 laser standard and about 35 laser radials!! Two days of a lovely festical of sails. Two weekends ago we had another issues of the SunCoast-DIYC Laser Fleet races...all day saturday at Sarasota's sailing Squadron...18 lasers of all rigs!! In two weeks, we have the district 13 laser championships in Lake Eustis!! As you see, laser racing is alive and well down here....come and join us!!regardsAntolinps if I could be sailing anywhere....hum an old fashioned Heineken Regatta in Puerto Rico as part of the CORT circuit would be nice

Hmmm - I just took a group of kids to Davis Is (had a great time) but they were complaining cause it got down to 60 at night. Yep - District 13s in a couple of weeks but if I had my dithers, I would have to go home to NZL (kiwiland)for Xmas, summer sailing on the real ocean, the Pacific!

I'm going to Key West in January, to get out of the Willamette Valley winter closet. In the meantime, I'll play along. If I could go anywhere, it would be on a yacht making the passage to the Marquesas Islands, where I'd wander off into the bush and spend the rest of my days eating guavas and fish.

Having a good fast surfski workout in Kailua Bay on Oahu, followed by a good meal at Buzz's (probably a teri steak burger, which unless they've changed things is really steak, not a burger, and grilled over kiawe wood & if I'm lucky they'll have the key lime pie with lilikoi butter on the dessert tray...yum).

I do have to say that today's paddle around the Norwalk Islands with TQ was nice, though. I'd been thinking I'd come back to Brooklyn today & get some housework done but the forecast looked so good I canned that idea & we spent the afternoon going out to Cockenoe, around the outside to Sheffield & then back to the Small Boat Shop as the sunset faded away. Sunset pretty darned good for the east coast - this time of year in CT, the sun does actually manage to sink into the Sound & on a lovely clear day like today the NYC skyline was the clearest I think I've ever seen it.

The Cedar Point Laser fleet looked to be having a splendid day!

And TQ didn't have any kiawe wood but he did a darned good job on a couple of steaks with a little gas grill he picked up a bit before he left Pennsylvania.

Honey Bunny and I are planning a trip to Chicago in January to bask in the warm glow of a boat show, Strictly Sail, to be precise. I don't know if this counts or not but it is the best we can muster up this winter.

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